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User blog:Brandon Rhea/Opinion blog draft
Ever since Disney acquired Lucasfilm last October, there's been a lot of changes in their new subsidiary. , then in its fifth season, was cancelled before being completed. Lucasfilm may still release the remaining stories as bonus material, but the TV series is over. Following that news was the announcement of layoffs at Lucasfilm Animation, as well as shutting down the development side of LucasArts and shifting towards a licensing model. This, too, led to layoffs at Lucasfilm. These events, perhaps understandably, led to considerable outcry from some Star Wars fans who thought that Disney bought Lucasfilm only to maximize its profits by cutting out areas where they would have to spend money. These fans feared that Disney was ruining and destroying Star Wars. This reaction wasn't surprising. I think we as fans have a tendency to freak out when something changes, especially when there are new people in charge. We tend to think that the newcomers are ruining what we love and that the best days of our favorite thing are behind us. However, this wasn't the case. I've been saying for months that Lucasfilm would be changing and that it's not a bad thing. The company has been set up a certain way that fit with its previous model, which included games and books and one television series. It wasn't primed and ready to go for an explosion of new Star Wars films, new television shows, new books, and more. As Business Insider pointed out a few months ago, Disney CEO Bob Iger approached George Lucas a few years ago about selling Lucasfilm. Iger knew what he wanted to do with Lucasfilm. He had a plan, and we're beginning to see that plan. When LucasArts shut down development, some fans thought that was the end of Star Wars gaming. However, Electronic Arts was then signed to a multi-game and multi-year deal to develop new Star Wars games, and Battlefront III and could still happen. Fans of The Clone Wars were upset about the cancellation of the show, but now we'll be getting Star Wars Rebels. For everything that Disney and Lucasfilm are supposedly destroying, something new is taking its place. The economic term most apt for this is "creative destruction." What we're beginning to now see is the future of Star Wars, one with a new vision. Let's take the cancellation of The Clone Wars, for example. I don't have much of a problem with The Clone Wars, and I think it got better each year, but it's not an era of Star Wars that appealed to mainstream audiences. Regardless of your opinion of the , mainstream audiences tend not to like it. The prevailing opinion is that those three films aren't very good. Disney and Lucasfilm know this, so they've shifted over to a new series. Rebels is set in an era that mainstream audiences do like: the . It may only be the beginnings of that era to start with, but it's an era that has , the , and the . Mainstream audiences love that. Is there a profit motive in moving the focus towards the classic era? Of course there is. Disney is a for-profit company so they are there to make money. It's important to remember that, as an independent company, Lucasfilm was too. Lucasfilm was not a non-profit that existed to make Star Wars out of the kindness of its heart before being purchased by the evil Hollywood bourgeoisie. Lucasfilm was a multi-billion dollar corporation that generated its massive amounts of revenue through Star Wars, especially its merchandise. The company was and still is a merchandising empire. Plus, making money isn't a bad thing. In the specific case of Star Wars, it's a blessing in disguise. Over the last 14 years in his time at the head of Star Wars, George Lucas essentially ran the franchise on whim and making a profit. Lucas is a very wealthy man and made the films he wanted to make, all with a steady stream of merchandizing income. That's something that worked too. There didn't need to be a long-term plan or vision because, as Lucas said over and over, there weren't going to be any new films. Disney changed that. Now, there's going to be new movies and there's a new vision to go along with them. Disney can't throw caution to the wind and do what they want. They know that, if the sequels are given poor or mixed reviews like the prequels, it ruins the long-term plans that they have for the franchise. J.J. Abrams has said this as well. They want to do one movie a year like Marvel, but a bad Star Wars Episode VII is going to annoy people. There's no rise of Darth Vader at the end of the tunnel to keep people coming back for more, so you have no reason to stick around for VIII and IX if VII is bad. You have no reason to go see a movie about Boba Fett or young Han Solo. Why bother if Star Wars is going to disappoint you again? So Disney has a profit motive like Lucas did, but they won't run it on whim either. Disney wanting to make money is not a bad thing; it's an exceptionally good thing. Their profit motive is why the movies will be good. To maximize their profits, Episode VII and the new films have to be good. That's what Disney's plan is. Caution + profit motive = Star Wars probably has a bright future ahead of it. Category:Blog posts